My wife reciently received some pictures in the mail from a family member. This family member was going through the closet and found some prints of my wife when she was a little girl. One of them was when she was 8 years old at Christmas with her favorite gift of all time. A big doll. That one photograph brought back a whole evening of conversation about that one Christmas and all that went into the day. There were two things that struck me about this. The first was how vivid her memory was of that holiday season, and her recollection of it from one Poloaroid photograph. One poloroid. One. That's it. One print remains as proof of that Christmas morning. The doll isn't even around. So lesson one is PRINT YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS. The second thing I thought of was, what if that had been a digital file on a hard drive instead of a print in the closet? Would a digital file have lasted as long as this print? I doubt it. Lesson two is PRINT YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS. Starting to see a theme here? I don't care what you shoot, film or digital, prints are what make a photograph. They last forever, and can be dropped in the mail (yes, I still use the post office) and sent on to whoever wants it.

Pentax ist 35mm, Tri-X 400 and Nikon F4, Fuji film

I recently had a family portrait session that turned out to be a blast. Turns out the family I was photographing hadn't been to the location we choose to do the session so it was all new to them. Their boys had a blast jumping around the creek and exploring the area. We had a great session and made some fantastic images of their family. The best part was, they stayed 2 hours longer as a family just messing around the area. What a great memory builder. They took the time to build a great memory as a family and now they have prints to remember their time together. Who knows, it may find its way out of a closet 50 years from now and a story can be shared about a family outing.